3.1.3.709: How to Verify and Fix a Possibly Corrupted Design?

Question

How to verify and fix, if necessary, a design that is likely to be corrupted? I first suspected I corrupted file when an attempt to reverse-engineer changes from the relation model to the logical did not work. After some investigation I found datamodeler.log file to which the following error was emitted whenever the reverse-engineer button was clicked: 2013-01-28 11:39:32,001 [AWT-EventQueue-0] ERROR MDBAction - java.lang.NullPointerException. This error message is reproducible. There are also additional warnings in the log whenever this particular design is opened such as [Thread-133] ERROR XMLTransformationManager - Unable to load object from XML: ..../model/dw/rel/A864FBB0-411F4EF06C86/table/seg_0/C4046530-1A69-AD31-6127-390C93D8F7F7.xml java.io.FileNotFoundException. The design has been moved from one Data Modeler version to another over the years. It is currently version controlled by SVN but, alas, I have not been able locate a fully functional copy from the repository. (People usually only use forward engineering from the logical model which appears to work fine most of the time.)
I have investigated the design and located a single table object in the relational model that appears corrupted. It cannot be removed from the design with the DataModeler UI (nothing happend when I click on delete on the object menu). I then checked out a testing copy of the design and manually removed all the files with the object identifier in the file name. Additionally, I searched for xml blocks with a reference to the object identifier and deleted the corresponding blocks from those file. After that the reverse-engineering button began to function again. However, I am afraid of commiting a manually edited design to the repository as I am not certain that I have not broken something else.
What is the recommended way to verify a design and fixing problems in it? Starting a new design from scratch is not an option since there is plenty of documentation within the design that cannot be easily obtained elsewhere. I could recreate the broken objects from the data dictionary if I first had a safe way to identify and delete them from the design.
Best regards,
Miikka

Answer 1

Hi Mikka,
thanks for the info provided.
You can use following script to see wrong foreign keys - in form table_name.fk_name:
log_rep = new Packages.oracle.dbtools.crest.swingui.LogReport(model.getAppView());
log_rep.setName("wrong FKs");
text = "";
fks = model.getFKIndexAssociationSet().toArray();
for(var i=0;i<fks.length;i++){
     fk = fks;
     if(fk.getRemoteIndex() == null){
          text = text + "\n" + fk.getLongName();
log_rep.setLog(text);
log_rep.showModalDialog(new java.awt.Dimension(750, 550));
and following script to remove themfks = model.getFKIndexAssociationSet().toArray();
for(var i=0;i<fks.length;i++){
     fk = fks[i];
     if(fk.getRemoteIndex() == null){
          fk.remove();
Now you can remove the table if you want to. Save design at the end.
Regards,
Philip